Page 66 of Ballad of Nightmares

Ana picked up the flashlight, and this time, she pointed it everywhere.

Demons. Ghosts. Whatever they were… there were a hundred of them. Some on the ground around her, some gaping at her over the railings on the second and third floors. All with those same looks about them: decaying, demonic, maniacal. Each either grinned or gawked at the mortal woman standing before them.

“Such pretty, pretty demons,” she hissed, meaning to taunt and edge them. She turned in a slow circle, her light flashing on each of them. “I know you’re in there somewhere, Sam. Care to come out and play?”

She searched and searched for him, but she didn’t see his face in the crowd of dying monsters around her. And when she flashed her light back on those who stood in a circle around her, she noticed they’d all stepped closer. Her lips curled into a smile, and her voice was a hiss.

“Catch me.”

She clicked the flashlight off.

And she ran.

Hands swept by her. Their wind touched her hair, her skin, her legs, her now bare feet. She bolted back for the stairs, this time rising all the way to the third floor, and she didn’t bother turning on that flashlight.

Flame swept on at the entrance to each cell as she reached it, and when she dared look behind her, a swarm of demons were on her tail.

And she swore across the room, on the other side of the cells, she saw Sam simply standing with his hands in his pockets watching her.

Warmth pooled into her body at the sight of him, but she didn’t forget the demons so close behind her. The flames went out just as she reached the walk that wrapped over the void below, and she staggered in the middle of it.

All footsteps ceased as she grabbed the bridge railings and tried to catch her breath. Though, with the way her heart was practically flying out of her chest, she wasn’t sure she could. All she could manage was another laugh.

“Scream for me.”

The voice tickled her ear. Ana struck the person’s leg, but they wrapped their arms around her waist. Strong arms, not the arms of whatever creatures were haunting her. She wriggled and pushed her elbows back, hitting him in the stomach. She twisted in their grasp and swept their legs out from beneath them, one foot now standing on the person’s hand, the other on his throat—

Sam nearly choked at the slam of Ana’s bare foot on his neck. She pulled back her arm, ready to strike, but almost flinched when she realized it was him. Her chest heaved, hand relaxing, but she didn’t move her foot.

“Having fun?” she asked breathlessly.

But Sam couldn’t move. He stared up at the woman holding him down. The pure confidence in her eyes and in every move she’d just made. Standing against those deviants. He could almost see it—seeher.

He could see her holding stabbed hearts in her hand and smeared in blood. He could see her running down corridors as guards chased and shot at her. Could see the gleam in her gaze and hear the laughter echoing off the walls as she took what was never hers and made it so.

And then another vision took over his mind.

Something greater and more devious than he’d ever seen.

Ana standing at the top of the hill at Firemoor’s capitol. The world on fire at her back. Wearing thigh-high boots and a blood-stained short dress that hugged her voluptuous curves. Guns strapped in holsters on her hips, one of her thighs. A sword strapped down her back between her—

Wings.

The vision made his cock harden, and suddenly he could no longer watch that light leave her eyes, at least not in the permanent sense.

When ravens fall, he’ll meet his match.

She washis.

Deianira Bronfellbelongedto him.

Regardless of anything he might have begun to feel, anything he might have thought to do with her in the past. She was his to unleash upon the world and take everything he’d ever wanted—everything he’d ever promised.

And, oh… the things he could do with her.

A licentious smile split his lips, baring his white teeth. “Yours, Ms. Smith,” he purred.

Her pulse raced. So fucking beautiful. So fucking fast.